A wonderful gentleman opened three huge bookstore in Los Angeles and Long Beach. Every book in all three stores are only $1 each whether hard back, paper back or brand new. It was always his dream to be able to afford everyone books to read. Wish I knew his name because he's a hero.

I picked up eight Stewart Woods brand new hard back books.

Many years ago I read his Palindrome and loved it.

I'm now reading Beverly Hills Dead.

Can't wait to go back there and buy the rest of his books. I will donate back those I've finished reading.

I just finished my second self-published Kindle e-book, Honor O'Flynn, A Search for the True Will of God by James Baily. It can best be described as a Christian historical romance novel, which is something I thought I would never read in my life. Why? It is based on true characters, Honora O'Flynn, a kidnapped lass from County Derry, Ireland transported to Annapolis, Maryland in 1702 and eventually wed to William Logsdon, a former indentured servant from England then free and in search of a wife. The struggle was her desire to return to Ireland to be a Catholic nun. They were my seventh great grandparents. The book is fiction based on some rudimentary facts. Eventually their descendants were the first Catholics in Kentucky.

This is not the first historical novel of my ancestors that emigrated to America. I also found, while in Wales, an obscure book by Marion Eames titled, Fair Wilderness originally published in Welsh and then in English in 1976. It is about William Penn's Quaker Welsh Settlement (near Philadelphia). My ancestors, Robert Owen and Jane Vaughan, were principal characters in the book along with Rowland Ellis, the founder of Bryn Mawr College. They all emigrated from Dolgellau, Wales as persecuted Quakers. They were earlier in a book by Marion Eames titled, The Secret Room, about Quaker meetings in defiance of the King in Dolgellau. Robert Owen, was a prominent man, former governor of Beaumaris, Wales, who suffered many years in jail for his Quaker beliefs.

My ancestry came together eventually with the Owen and Logsdon families marrying into my Stovall ancestors in the wilderness of Kentucky. All three branches arrived in Kentucky sometime prior to 1791 when the first tax rolls were taken and published.

Finished "Trickster's Point" by William Kent Krueger. The latest Cork O'Connor mystery about a former sheriff and current p'I. in the fictional Iron Range town of Aurora, Minnesota. Always an interesting read with a great deal to say about culture and human relations. Mr. O'Connor seems to be a magnet for mayhem but I have found the character to be one I enjoy following.

That's a problem for mystery series set in rural areas and small towns. Would you want to live in Aurora, Saddlestring or Cabot's Cove with all the yearly murder and mayhem?

I've enjoyed the Steve Jobs biography a lot more than I thought I would. While it's been fun for me because it's about stuff in my "stomping grounds," there's also some wisdom in it--about how he thought, what he believed was important and why, and how he controlled things (maniacally, for sure). He was such a game changer in personal computers, music, and animated film. He accomplished what he truly wanted, which was to change the world. He really was not about the pursuit of money and things, as some might imagine. I expect if he'd lived longer, the iPhone 5 would not have been released with a flawed mapping app!

Next up, a Christmas novel--one of my favorite things to do during the holidays.

Finished "Trickster's Point" by William Kent Krueger. The latest Cork O'Connor mystery about a former sheriff and current p'I. in the fictional Iron Range town of Aurora, Minnesota. Always an interesting read with a great deal to say about culture and human relations. Mr. O'Connor seems to be a magnet for mayhem but I have found the character to be one I enjoy following.

That's a problem for mystery series set in rural areas and small towns. Would you want to live in Aurora, Saddlestring or Cabot's Cove with all the yearly murder and mayhem?

One of my favorite "Murder She Wrote" episodes was one where a D.A. mentioned how many murders Jessica and her nephew Grady had been involved in to cast aspersions on their character. And the Park in Alaska in the shugak mysteries is another very lethal community.

Have just finished three Dana Stabenow kate Shugak mysteries," A Grave Denied"," A Taint in the Blood, " and " A Deeper Sleep" . The citizens of the park are facing their usual problems of murder and violence and local Kate shugak, a woman tougher than Alaska's frontier landscape, is doing her best to bring wrongdoers to justice. The tangled weave of impersonal relationships and family gives these tales great power. once you become acquainted with these characters, you will want to read these tales.

F. Paul Wilson is our family doctor. A practicing doctor and a best selling author. He makes me feel inadequate. While being sick is never good, when I go to his office, I can talk his latest books, and being an English teacher, it's fun to chat literature. If you have not tried them, read his Repairman Jack series. Read about it here: www. repairmanjack.com

Looking back, the more valuable high school courses I ever took were my two years of Latin. They enabled me to "kill" the SAT's and, later, the GRE's and I actually made money going to college and graduate school!

Dead language, my a$$: Latin is the key to 'educated' English and makes learning Romance languages (Spanish, French, and Italian) a "snap".

I just ordered the latest of the Clancy and Griffin Novels. Jack Ryan is the President again, and Cletus Frade is fighting Peron and Nazi-Survivalists in Post-WW II Argentina...Good Holiday reading, if they arrive in time. Griffin's won't be released til January 3rd...so it will be my New Years activity.

F. Paul Wilson is our family doctor. A practicing doctor and a best selling author. He makes me feel inadequate. While being sick is never good, when I go to his office, I can talk his latest books, and being an English teacher, it's fun to chat literature. If you have not tried them, read his Repairman Jack series. Read about it here: www. repairmanjack.com

I am incredibly jealous! I've been in love with the Repairman Jack books for years!

I keep meaning to update this thread with what I'm reading, but I seriously go through a book every 1-2 days and it's kinda hard to keep up. Since I went to the library on Monday, I've read Stephen King's A Wind Through the Keyhole, John Grisham's The Racketeer, and am halfway through John Sandford's Sudden Prey.

Okay, Stone Barrington fans--please recommend one of these books for a beginner.

Go back to some of Stuart Woods first books, work forward, as they are all somewhat tied together, the Carachters I mean, all plots completely different, very fast reads, sad when I finish each book, can't wait for his next one, Woods good for 2 or 3 a year!

Since last post, I finished the Sandford, and read Paranoia by Joseph Finder, Sense of Evil by Kay Hooper, Hell's Gate by Stephen Frey, and Revenge of Innocents by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg.

I don't recommend anything by Rosenberg...every time I pick up one of her books I remember why I told myself not to. The plot lines are ridiculous (and virtually identical in every book), she can't spell, she has an awfully hard time using the right words for things, and her editor doesn't fix any of that.

The Prey novels by John Sandford, though, I highly recommend! You don't have to read them in order, although they do follow an ongoing story line with the characters so you might want to. They're all well-written and fast-paced, and always have some kind of twist or unexpected conclusion that makes them even better.

The Delta Queen Cookbook by Cynthia LeJene Nobles, fascinating history on the steamboat cruise ship, with some delicious looking recipes. And, The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny, the first time for me reading any of her works, but so far am really enjoying it.

Finished "Trickster's Point" by William Kent Krueger. The latest Cork O'Connor mystery about a former sheriff and current p'I. in the fictional Iron Range town of Aurora, Minnesota. Always an interesting read with a great deal to say about culture and human relations. Mr. O'Connor seems to be a magnet for mayhem but I have found the character to be one I enjoy following.

That's a problem for mystery series set in rural areas and small towns. Would you want to live in Aurora, Saddlestring or Cabot's Cove with all the yearly murder and mayhem?

I've spent many a moon in the Twin Cities, working for two different railroads, but I never dreamed there were so many serial killers or stone cold maniacs there until reading the John Sandford novels. Now I wonder what I was doing, driving down those streets in the wee hours.